Cornell Chronicle

“It’s sad that yet another tragedy has now been linked to this symbolism in Charlottesville, which underscores the urgency of seriously grappling with the monuments, recognizing their detrimental impact and rethinking their display. However, it is important to recognize that this issue is not just about Confederate monuments.

“American higher education was birthed in slavery, so many other emblems on campuses also reflect this painful past and routinely do psychic violence to black and other minority students. The tragedy in Charlottesville underscores the importance of not conflating free speech and hate speech on campuses, and of ensuring that all students feel welcome and safe.”

“It is still way too early to really know the impact Hurricane Harvey will have on the local and national economy, but it is fair to say that a significant portion of the country’s oil and oil-processing infrastructure will be out of action for a while.

“As for economic activity more generally, the first thing to be said is that our normal measures of such things (GDP, GNP, etc.) have not been designed with natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey in mind.

“At the most basic level, we have seen a huge destruction of capital assets – houses, roads, office buildings – and we will then see a burst of economic activity as these are rebuilt.

“That may make it look like we are getting a boost but I doubt if anyone in coastal Texas would tell you that they are better off. They lost a lot of stuff and are working to rebuild what they lost. Measures like the GDP pick up the effort to rebuild – but don’t count the loss in assets.”

“The Voyager spacecraft showed us the incredible beauty of our solar system and gave us a glimpse into the secrets of the planetary system we call home. Besides the daring exploration of our solar system, Voyager 1 made a snapshot of our own planet – our ‘pale blue dot.’ This image is breathtaking. Our ‘pale blue dot’ is suspended in the vast darkness of space. It is beautiful, fragile, thought provoking and it is home.

“The Golden Record is a frozen moment in time, encompassing the world. It reminds us of all the amazing achievements of humankind and that among all the conflict in this world, the beauty we create is mesmerizing. It is humankind's message to space – a time capsule of our culture traveling between the stars, and a message that will outlive us all. The impact the Golden Record has is vast, and well beyond science.

“We have already found thousands of worlds orbiting other suns and some that could be like our own ‘pale blue dot’, maybe even more colorful. The next step is to find out how we fit into this fascinating universe and whether we are alone in the universe.”

“While apparently random, solar and lunar eclipses in fact occur following a fairly complex pattern of cycles, in which the main 18-year period is known as the Saros cycle. The ancients knew of this cycle and used it to make predictions, but we understand now that this cycle simply reflects the orbital motion of the moon about the Earth every 29.53 days combined with the Earth’s motion about the sun every 365.35 days. After 18 years and 11 days, the pattern of new moons and eclipses repeats itself almost exactly.

“We can predict future eclipse times within a few seconds for several centuries into the future, and the eclipse tracks within a few tens of kilometers. The limitation on our accuracy is set by the slightly irregular spin of the Earth on its axis, which changes exactly where the path of totality will fall on Earth. In fact, one reason we know the Earth’s spin is irregular is by studying records of ancient eclipses and where they were seen.

“In the distant future, which is several millions of years from now, there will be no more total solar eclipses because the moon will have moved too far away from the Earth to cover the sun’s disk completely. We live in a lucky time!”

“The speed, reliability, and flexibility of Hyperloop technology is likely to transform the transportation sector as we know it. It has advantages over existing travel modes because of its speed, safety, and energy efficiency.

“The Hyperloop is a new mode of transport that uses tubes – on in each direction – that are evacuated of air to move people and resources between cities in minutes. The tubes are a near-vacuum, and vehicles or ‘pods’ inside the tubes can move people or goods using magnetic-levitation technology.

“The pods are powered by electricity. The lack of air resistance allows the pods to move through the tubes at very high speed while using little energy, but very safely.

“The diameter of the tubes can vary. They can be the size of a small car or of a shipping container. The Hyperloop is versatile, in the sense that the tubes can be placed at ground level, slightly above ground level, or even below ground level.”

“Another milestone for the Dow means another chance to ask the hard questions about fundamentals that might justify it.

“Healthy job growth, reasonably-paced and balanced economic expansion, modest inflation expectations, solid second-quarter corporate earnings, and remarkably low expected market volatility surely are the tailwinds pushing the Dow higher.

“But there are serious headwinds, including fiscal policy uncertainty (tax reform, infrastructure), political stasis, turbulence in international trade and investment relationships, and many geo-political risks.

“A 22,000 point Dow may be just the prompt investors need to book a sit-down with their financial advisors for that regular financial health checkup.”

“This paper is an exciting validation of the molecular simulation predictions in the Stevenson et al. paper in 2015. It shows the power of molecular simulation to ‘shine a flashlight’ onto the most promising candidates for prebiotic life in conditions that are difficult to emulate in the lab.
“This confirmation suggests that future collaborations between computational approaches and mining of the experimental data can lead to breakthroughs in understanding worlds alien to our own.”

“As the Larsen C ice sheet is about to shed a trillion-ton iceberg the size of Delaware, it is important for the public to understand its implications. The melting of the cryosphere (all of the world’s snow and ice) is a slow process on human time scales, but it can be quite rapid on geological time scales.
“At the current atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (a little over 400 ppm), we can look back at the geological record and estimate that sea level will equilibrate in several hundred years at about 80 feet higher than present. Most of that water is currently locked up in the Greenland as well as the East and West Antarctic ice sheets.
“With an 80-foot rise in sea level, we can conclude that the majority of the world’s megacities, which are located very close to current sea level, are at risk of being inundated. This will create hundreds of millions of climate refugees and would happen during the next few hundred years.
“The world is facing some very serious threats from climate change. We will soon be locked into changes in the future that many people might characterize as catastrophic.”

"Toyota plans on selling its new hydrogen fuel cell car, the Mirai, next month in Japan and expand to major markets in 2015. The new fuel-cell vehicle will attempt to replicate the success of the Prius. ... The Prius success in the U.S. found mass acceptance thanks to subsidies and California policies allowing the Prius to drive in the HOV car-pool lanes to avoid traffic jams. The new Mirai will get more than $17,300 in subsidies in Japan and $12,500 in the U.S. There are several cars available brand new for less than the subsidy paid by the government."

Last year, a large number of retailers opened on Thanksgiving night. Companies wanted to be out there with their deals, before anyone else, in order to capture the business. ... But when everyone opens on Thanksgiving Thursday, the advantage erodes. ... Consumers aren’t necessarily going to spend more money, because they can shop sooner. If retailers continue to launch their Black Friday promotions and deals earlier in November, Black Friday becomes meaningless.